‘I… very well. We will leave you to do just that. You are very thoughtful, Your Grace.’ Mama got to her feet, hesitated as though uncertain whether or not to embrace Cal again and eventually went out, her husband at her heels. The door stayed open halfway this time. Mama presumably knew all about the temptations of proximity.
She felt suddenly shy. ‘Thank you for not pressing the issue about the date. I would not want to spoil my last days here with any dissention.’
Cal seemed to have caught her formality. ‘You are quite right, and it is your decision. I must confess to impatience.’
‘Yes,’ Sophie murmured as she seated herself at the little table in the corner that served as the ladies’ writing desk.
Cal picked up a chair, set it beside hers and bent to take her lips in a hard, fleeting kiss. ‘That must suffice for now. Pick up that pen before my resolve weakens. You and me, your parents, my uncle and his wife, Ralph. That is seven. I would add Jared Hunt. Eight. Your bridesmaids?’
‘There are three unmarried friends I would like to have, and one who is married, so that would add five with her husband. May I ask Toby?’
‘Of course. That makes thirteen which leaves us seven more to find. Who else?’
It took them half an hour to finalise the list, adding some of Cal’s re-found friends and another married couple to reassure the mothers of the single girls. ‘If anyone we ask would like to suggest a friend, we can expand on the twenty,’ he said as Sophie copied the list out again for him to send his half of the invitations. ‘It is a big house.’
‘How big?’ Her stomach gave a little swoop. Duchess, big house… It is going to be vast and so is everything to do with this marriage. Vast numbers of servants, of tenants, of ancestors, of responsibilities. I have not just agreed to marry a man but a small nation state.
‘About twenty principal bedchambers as I recall.’ Cal was frowning with the effort to remember and did not appear to notice her convulsive grip on the table edge. Best not to ask how many minor bedchambers. ‘Not that I took much notice before. I wasn’t very well for a lot of the time I was growing up and housekeeping details just passed me by.’
‘What was wrong with you?’ She had rarely seen a healthier specimen of manhood and it was hard to imagine Cal laid low by anything for long.
‘Some childhood ailment, I suppose.’ He shrugged. ‘The doctors never came up with a diagnosis, but it cleared up after I went abroad.’
What aren’t you telling me? He was just too casual about it, too glib. The temptation to ask Ralph was strong, but that would be disloyal. Probably Cal was embarrassed by a perceived weakness and would tell her all about it when they knew each other a little better.
Men require managing, Mama always said, although Sophie recognised that she managed Step Papa far less than she had Papa, which was interesting. Papa had not regarded women as anything but decorative accessories. To be loved and cherished, certainly, but if anyone had suggested that a female had a brain capable of reasoning and decision-making beyond the menu for the week or the choice of a bonnet, he would have thought they were mad. But Step Papa not only loved her mother, he admired her, asked her opinion, shared decisions.
‘Do you think me merely a decorative accessory?’ she asked before she had time to think about it.
Cal paused in the process of tucking the invitation list into his breast pocket. ‘Why do I sense a trap in that question? Decorative, yes. An accessory, certainly not, except possibly before or after some criminal act.’
‘Me? A criminal?’ Sophie protested. She tried to establish his true feelings and he insulted her?
‘No, an incitement to crime.’ Cal moved close. Very close. ‘To holding you to ransom for a million kisses, to kidnap so I can tempt you to all kinds of wickedness on some desert island. I want to make love to you in every public park in London, I want to tear the petals off every rose bush I encounter to strew over your naked body. I want to corrupt you utterly, my lovely Sophie.’
Oh. My. Goodness. She had thought to find a respectable, tame, marriage. One that was safe, comfortable. Suitable. And now she was betrothed to a barbarian, a tiger. A man who would consume her. Deliciously. Dangerously.
‘You may try, Your Grace.’ She went to the door, dropped a very proper curtsy and batted her eyelashes, making him laugh. ‘But I am determined to be the very model of a most proper duchess. Good day, Your Grace.’
The glimpse of his smile vanishing as she closed the door was very gratifying. Two could tease.
Chapter Ten - Where Sophie’s Past Comes Back to Haunt Her